The Tumbleweed Awards 2005 - Results

[The Mumbler]

Nice work, Mumbler.

Political Animal (which I for one will certainly push forward come November time)

Glad I missed this.  What is it, selected highlights of Gervais' two stand up shows?

Sorry.

Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver link some supposedly political stand-ups, and subvert humorous political comment by...not having any.  Unless you count them comparing "Tessa Jowell to...I dunno...some twigs".*  Yup, That Voice deafens throughout.  Being an Avalon production, it uses lots of other Avalon artists, but cuts, say, a fairly good Rob Newman routine in half, meaning you have to wade through whimsical links and other assorted nothingness.  This assorted smithereens is beyond anything I can evoke in a paragraph such as this.  Actually, this is precisely what the Radio Times' Alison Graham should be lambasting in her "terrible Radio 4 comedies" rant, rather than the bloody Bearded Ladies.

*They didn't actually say this, but you get the idea.

[rudi]

I suppose there's a reason why The Mumbler isn't included in the latest Honours List...?

[Little Hoover]

Law Of The Playground.

Should we also be mentioning comedians and personalities that have been active recently, Russel Brand for instance.
How about  generic northern comedian who appears on 8 out of 10 cats and things like Law of the Playground. There's quite a few of them about, but maybe it's just the same guy assuming different forms, so when you see him you don't automatically think "oh that guy, he's shit"

I've got tumbleweed fever, I just read over the 2005 results again.

[easytarget]

Let's not forget the wireless in all this.  2006 has already brought us:
...
Weak At The Top (like a L&H programme idea.  "John Weak is in charge of a company...")

Yeah, but wasn't a bad little show was it?
I liked Alexander Armstrong's constant Clarkson impression (see Saxondale for more of that). It was an ideal doing-the-washing-up/folding-clothes/etc. program that radio 4 excel at.

Oh, you missed The Blagger's guide (series2) which has just finished. I thought it was great, but I'm a sucker for all things Quantick.

[JPA]

Saying I can't edit my post any more, so I'll just bring this over the page and add new shows underneath.

Hyperdrive
8 out of 10 Cats
IT Crowd
Friday Night Project
My Name Is Earl
Thin Ice
Snuff Box
Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe
Two Pints... (new series)
The Armstrongs
TittyBangBang
Bremner, Bird & Fortune
The Mighty Boosh
American Dad!
Shameless
My Family
Never Mind The Buzzcocks
Man Stroke Woman (terrestrial debut)
Everybody Hates Chris
Don't Watch That, Watch This!
TV Heaven,Telly Hell
Green Wing
Just for Laughs
HIGNFY
My Family
Smith & Jones Sketchbook
Home Again (cheers S?S!)
Nighty Night Series 2 (BBC2 Showing)
The Smoking Room S2 (BBC2 Showing)
Grown Ups
Suburban Shootout.
Feel the force
How I met your mother
Dead Ringers
Comedy Lab (are we allowed this?)
Saxondale
Still Game
Modern Toss
My Hero
Time Trumpet
Supernova
Kath & Kim
The Kumars at No 42
Law of the Playground
Da Ali G Show
The Best of the Worst
Respectable
Extras S2

[benthalo]

What's the exact period for nominations - September to September is it? As series 2 of The Mighty Boosh ended its premiere run in August 2005. Man Stroke Woman is safe either way as the digital run went from 20/11/05 to 03/01/06 due to a hiccup in the middle.

A new series of Swinging is running back to back with Respectable, so that ought to be in there too.

Comedy Lab for this year:

Series 8, Show 1: Fonejacker   09/05/2006
Series 8, Show 2: Bad Crowd   09/05/2006
Series 8, Show 3: Transmission Impossible   10/05/2006
Series 8, Show 4: FM   10/05/2006
Series 8, Show 5: Dynamo's Estate Of Mind   11/05/2006
Series 8, Show 6: Dog Almighty   11/05/2006
Series 8, Show 7: Alex Zane's House Of Games   12/05/2006
Series 8, Show 8: Slap   12/05/2006

A couple of them probably don't count as comedy

Funny Cuts on E4 to date:

Andrew Maxwell - My Name Up In Lights   28/07/2006
Devvo   13/07/2006
Dog Almighty World Cup Special   15/06/2006
German Tourist Board   21/07/2006
Mark's Home Videos   28/07/2006
Modern Worries   14/07/2006
Simon Brodkin's Comedy Shows   04/08/2006
Taboogie   21/07/2006
Tank Commander   18/05/2006
The German Tourist Board   21/07/2006

And one more that I've missed.

[benthalo]

Comedy podcasts ought to include Baddiel & Skinner's World Cup Podcasts with The Times, and there was that hopeless Timesonline one for the Edinburgh festival presented by Jason Byrne in which he just shouted all the time.

Working on the September to September theory, and to compliment earlier lists, here is a profile of the past twelve-month on television:

September 2005: Meet The Magoons, Baddiel & Skinner Unplanned, Bromwell High and The Smoking Room wind down. Room 101's tenth run commences and Nighty Night S2 begins on BBC3. Noble & Silver do a comedy special for Channel 4 from The Big Chill 05 and Q.I. returns. Tittybangbang pilots and Spoons debuts

October 2005: Dick and Dom's final run starts around here (it counts for me), The Best & Worst of God with Vic Reeves and a load of talking head comics doing material on BBC2, BBC4 revives a series of old panel games as Play It Again, The Last Word and The Daily Show arrive on More4 along with Alistair Beaton's A Very Social secretary, Supernova series 1 starts, The Thick Of It series 2 and Harry Hill's Shark Infested Custard comes to CBBC. Broken News is the bomb of the month.

November 2005: after months of being left on a shelf, Fact Hunt comes to ITV1, Richard Herring kicks off Heads Up on the Pokerzone channel, The Late Edition begins its second series on BBC4 and Hugo Blick's Sensitive Skin starts on BBC2. That last one's borderline but he's of comedy pedigree. The Comic Side of 7 Days dwindles to a close. Peep Show S3 commences, as does the third run of Little Britain. Catherine Tate and Barbara Windsor ruin Children In Need. Man Stroke Woman comes to BBC3.

December 2005: nothing much of note, although Foley & McColl: This Way Up is a surprise Christmas highlight. Shoot The Writers! on ITV1 ends. Reunions: The Comic Strip Presents... Sex Actually on C4 and The Return Of The Goodies on BBC2.

January 2006: new series for The Friday Night Project, Harry Hill's TV Burp, Tittybangbang, Mock The Week, The Late Edition (S3!) and Hyperdrive. The desultory Rich Hall's Cattle Drive goes out on BBC3. The IT Crowd debuts and there's another Audience With... Joan Rivers. BBC3's search for new writers, The Last Laugh, results in a documentary series which even they bury in the wee hours. In other failures, Help Your Self with Angus Deayton sinks like a stone.

February 2006: Tetsell & Robins pilot This Is Genius with Lucas Wilson II, a virtual monologue for Rebecca Front, on BBC4. David Schneider makes Uncle Max, a Mr Bean for toddlers, on CITV. Hardeep Singh Kohli delivers his stand up/documentary series Hardeep Does... on C4 in the mornings. Snuff Box is upon us and is then never mentioned again. Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe arrives too, as does series 3 of The Mark Steel Lectures.

March 2006: Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa just about counts. Ideal series 2 starts on BBC3 and Cubby Counch is piloted (BBC3? Can't recall). Never Mind The Buzzcocks is back for its 18th run. TV Heaven, Telly Hell starts on C4. Touch Me, I'm Karen Taylor pilots on BBC3, as does her terrible sitcom May Contain Nuts.

April 2006: Robert Newman's The History of Oil on More4. Simon Amstell and Miquita Oliver leave Popworld, in order to be replaced by a pair of utter cunts. Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow bows out too. Sniff. The Smith & Jones Sketchbook kicks off, but otherwise it's a thin month.

May 2006: Home Again starts on BBC1, Feel The Force on BBC2, Grown Ups on BBC3 and Suburban Shootout on Five/Paramount. Johnny Daukes and David Quantick's The Message also starts on BBC3 but is buried sharpish. Comedy Lab returns (see previous message). Baby Cow get desperate and start making Outtakes documentaries for BBC3. Julian Bloody Fellowes commences a run of Never Mind The Full Stops on BBC4 and Funny Cuts starts on E4 with Tank Commander (again, see previous message). Shark Infested Custard returns for a second batch.

June 2006: Saxondale, Still Game's fifth run and John Fortune's Coup!, which isn't really a comedy but is intended to be at least a bit satirical. A thin month otherwise.

July 2006: Nicholas Craig returns in How To Be 18th Century. David Walliams swims the channel for Sport Relief in Little Britain's Big Swim, a documentary also serving to profile the pair on tour. Modern Toss gets a series. Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive starts on BBC3 and there are suddenly lots of Funny Cuts on E4. Screen Wipe returns and Time Trumpet is previewed.

August 2006: Some Thoughts by Karl Pilkington on C4's Three-Minute Wonders (bound to be a favourite), Andrew Maxwell's Udderbelly shorts for E4, Time Trumpet and Turn Back Time on BBC2.

September 2006: Swinging, Respectable. More to follow.

And that's just what I've got on disc. I'm sure other people can fill in further gaps. I might do radio later on.

[benthalo]

And Whatever - clearly this year's Balls of Steel - started in August.

[TJ]

Just to stifle the 'you lot hate everything' whingers from last time, I'm proposing we also run a parallel 'best comedy' awards too, on the proviso that votes for that will only be accepted from people who have also voted in the Tumbleweeds. Thoughts?

[rudi]

That's a good idea (although i fear it won't be nearly so funny as t'others).

[TJ]

That's a good idea (although i fear it won't be nearly so funny as t'others).

It wouldn't be meant to be funny though; little more than an extended sidebar really.

[rudi]

Yeah,sorry - was just a way of crowbarring some sycophancy in there, I suppose.

[Go With The Flow]

Best comedy - of 2006?

You're having a larf!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think it's a good idea, but I'm not sure about running parallel with the Tumbleweeds- won't that dilute the impact of the idea. Maybe have a best comedy awards as a sticky topic in CC or something?

[ffogems]

Yeah, I agree; it softens the impact. Best to put the effort into the Tumblies, and maybe have Best Comedy Antithesis as just a very thin offshoot.

Shouldn't work start now for this year's? It was all very rushed and spontaneous last year. And are there any plans to expand on the format or will there just be another webpage of results?

[TJ]

Hmmm... but I don't agree that it's a good idea to have a 'best' thing that people can vote in if they haven't voted in The Tumbleweeds. That way it'lll just be overrun with the 'I liked Green Wing and so did my friend at work' brigade.

[JPA]

What's the exact period for nominations - September to September is it?

Is that the case? I wasn't sure, just started noting things that I noticed were on from the beginning of the year, it was never a definitive list.

So anything after September isn't in the running?

[The Mumbler]

Actually September-September wasn't used as the nominations period for last year's, as Broken News for one (which only began on 31st October) won a few categories.  But the period that the British Comedy Awards uses is 1 October - 30 September.

[Brutus Beefcake]

Is there even enough decent comedies of the last year to form list of nominations for a good comedy awards?  I'm not taking the piss, I really can't think of many.

[rudi]

So when do we get started? My bucket of bile sloppeth over...

[bithez]

rather than "best [x]" awards, i'd suggest awards for comedy that has been badly mistreated - worst DVD release, worst marketing, victims of senseless abuse by their own channel, best imported comedy that didn't actually get imported and had to be downloaded, etc etc.

[Mister Cairo]

Harry Hill's TV Burp being put on at 5:30pm on Saturdays, for example Most TV listings bunch up all the programs because the majoirty are crap chat shows and Songs of Praise from another stained glass church with an interested story twisited so it relates to Jesus, so it's hard to spot.

[Brutus Beefcake]

Bravo putting Adult Swim on at midnight weekdays causing me to get fuck all sleep.

[Little Hoover]

A bit of a stretch this one, but paramount not repeating their new south park episodes, they show repeats throughout the week in the 11-1am slot so why can't they repeat the new episodes then, because I'm not into the rhythm of thinking "ahhh 9 o'clock south park on paramount time" I'm in the rhythm of thinking "ahh 9 o'clock time to shudder at C4's lineup" so I keep missing them
And it's just dumb to put new comedy up against new comedy.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Star Stories is another new C4 comedy showing they can't imagine comedy shows where 'celebrities' aren't involved in any shape or form.

[benthalo]

Actually September-September wasn't used as the nominations period for last year's, as Broken News for one (which only began on 31st October) won a few categories.  But the period that the British Comedy Awards uses is 1 October - 30 September.

We need a decision on this, alanstrang, Neil, TJ, ELW10?

[The Mumbler]

If we do decide on 1 Oct - 30 Sept, then theoretically the same series of Broken News will be eligible for a second year running.  Which, while it was certainly abominable, seems unfair to be singled out in such a way.  Mind you, BBC4 repeats from next week ("A place to, oh, just unthinkingly shove recent BBC2 stuff"), so maybe the repeats count.  I don't know.  What else would be affected in that way, that got broadcast in the last three months of the year and which got nominated/won in those awards?

[benthalo]

What else would be affected in that way, that got broadcast in the last three months of the year and which got nominated/won in those awards?

Going by my monthly breakdown on the previous page and what I dimly recall of the last Tumbleweeds, Little Britain series 3 (17/11/05 - 24/12/05) is surely another crossover point? It ran beyond the results date and certainly worsened during the run. I watched the last episode with my father, who'd "heard so many good things about it". When it was suggested we watch the South Bank Show on Christmas Day, he rather too firmly remarked "no, I think I've seen all that I need to of that."

I'll make a start on radio comedy in a mo, but I don't promise it'll be comprehensive.

[benthalo]

This is the radio I can call to mind right now. Loads more, I'm sure.

OCTOBER 2005: It's Been A Bad Week (R2) hits series 14, The News Quiz strikes up its 58th run and Deep Trouble (R4) begins its first, whilst Flight Of The Conchords and Another Case Of Milton Jones conclude. OneClick Comedy with Danny Robins started on 29th September and continues pretty much interrupted for the next nine months. Serious About Comedy continues its first series on BBC7. Paperback Hell by Tetsell & Robins returns for its third run on Radio 4. There's also a new series, and the last to date, of The Consultants. Radio Rivron begins a second series on R2. The first series of Genius arrives with guests Paul Daniels, Neil Innes and others.

NOVEMBER 2005: The Bits In Between, ISIHAC hits series 46. Also, an Afternoon Play with Jenny Éclair called The Andy Warhol Syndrome, and another with the comic referencing title Best of Luck, Phyllis Diller. A bona fide new comedy show from BBC7 too, in the form of Colin & Fergus's Digi-Radio. The station also begins a run of the BBC7 New Comedy Awards 2005.

DECEMBER 2005: Mark Thomas Presents.... specials with the stars of his 2004 documentary series We Interrupt This Programme, with live recordings of Stan Freberg, Mort Sahl, The Firesign Theatre and another who escapes me right now. Charlie Higson hosts The Comedy Album Show on R2 which probably shouldn't count, but hey ho. BBC7 run a series of short stories under the banner Twas The Night Before Christmas, including one by Arthur Mathews. Trapped (R4) begins a new series, as do 15 Minute Musical and Ed Reardon's Week. The Mark Radcliffe-produced Count Arthur Strong debuts on R4 just before Christmas, and on Christmas Eve the ISIHAC team present the cod documentary In Search Of Mornington Crescent.  Simon Amstell sits in for Mark Radcliffe during Christmas week, and on Radio 2's there's Eddie Izzard's Christmas Cabaret. Kenny Everett's Radio Days – a series of new compilations – commences on BBC7, the station who also sneak out the withdrawn 2001 series Graham Norton's Big Apple, missing the "Crumble" off the title which ensured that it couldn't go out at the time thanks to The Events Of 9/11 TM. Peter Blegvad wraps up the year with a Between The Ears short on Radio 3, Guest + Host = Ghost. Meanwhile, on Radio 2, Alan Carr guests on The Lee Mack Show.

JANUARY 2006: New Magic Roundabout stories on Radio 4 in The Adventures Of Dougal. Daniel Kitson's Listening Club commences its short run on Resonance 104.4 FM. BBC7's interview series with comedians, Comic To Comic, makes its debut. The Saturday Play on Radio 4 runs Being Mussolini, which I vaguely remember as a Boothby Graffoe script starring Omid Djalili. Jon Ronson On... returns for its second series, as does Clive Anderson's Chat Room. Tim Key's series of monologues All Bar Luke begins on Radio 4, as does a second series of The Storyman with Andrew Clover. Following on from its dismal pilot. Banter with Andrew Collins gets a series.  All The Right Notes, Not Necessarily In The Right Order with Rainer Hersch starts and is, coincidentally, being repeated on Radio 4 on Wednesdays at 6.30.

FEBRUARY 2006: Hurray, it's series two of Serious About Comedy. Chain Reaction gets a second series too, on Radio 4.

MARCH 2006: The only show I grabbed this month, seemingly, was John Shuttleworth's Open Mind.

APRIL 2006: Political Animal with Zaltzman & Oliver on Radio 4. There's a series of two handers in the Woman's Hour serial this month, under the banner Friends Like These, including one by Adam & Joe and another by Steve Steen & Jim Sweeney. Chris Addison's Civilisations commences on Radio 4 too, as does a second run of High Table, Lower Orders. Radio 2's godawful Out To Lunch begins, hosted by two people who c.a.n.n.o.t. i.m.p.r.o.v.i.s.e.  The Classic Serial is Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse with Marcus Brigstocke.

MAY 2006: Down The Line with Gary Bellamy debuts. Revolting People returns for another series. ISIHAC is back for series 47, Bad Week for a fifteenth and Heresy for a less impressive third with a new producer and general loss of direction. All The Way From Memphis appears for a second and surely final run.

JUNE 2006: OneClick Comedy with Danny Robins, the Milk Run replacement, comes to an end, with no sign of a new series just yet. Johnny Vegas stars in Lucky Lonny, another Afternoon Play role. The Stanley Baxter Playhouse runs for four weeks on Radio 4. Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive returns for its second series. 28 Acts In 28 Minutes moves to radio. Baddiel & Skinner's World Cup Podcast commences.

JULY 2006: Jack Rosenthal's Last Act. Rumpole's Return in The Afternoon Play. The Personality Test takes radio comedy back six years. Baggage series 2.

AUGUST 2006: 15 Minute Musical goes to series 3, followed by Julian Fox – Concrete Poetry. There's also Hamish & Dougall - You'll Have Had Your Tea series 3 and the spectre of Holland's Shorts. A clear runner for worst comedy of the year, Not Today Thank You kicks off in the early evening slot. The Times runs an absolutely terrible Edinburgh podcast with Jason Byrne. BBC7 stoop almost as low with Radio Scotland's MacAulay & Co. The Department begins, as does BBC7's Pleased To Meet You (which I think piloted at Christmas, but not sure when). Dara O'Briain & Friends at the Fringe is on Radio 2.

SEPTEMBER 2006: Genius series 2. Craig Brown's new series 1966 And All That.

Ongoing during this period: Loose Ends, Get This! with Tony Martin, various Mark Radcliffe shows with comic guests, Richard Fucking Herring on Andrew Collins (6Music, Sundays), Alex Riley's BBC7 links, the Gervais podcast. TMBG's podcast started in December 05 too. When was the Powder Room – Feb/March?

Could someone else do cinema please? A general events list too, such as the Iannucci lectures and the death of Linda Smith? Live shows of the year? I've reached my limit I think...

[Ignatius_S]

I'll have a go at doing a cinema one.